Image: Jeff Koons, Hanging Heart (Red/Gold), 1994–2006, Palazzo Grassi, Venice © Jeff Koons
Palazzo Grassi in Venice will host a permanent presentation of the Pinault Collection beginning on 21 March 2027. The presentation will bring together more than 100 major works of contemporary art.
Twenty years after Palazzo Grassi opened, François Pinault said he wanted to give some of the collection’s works a lasting setting—not to freeze the collection in place, but to allow the works to continue questioning viewers and renewing their way of looking at the world. The presentation is also described as an opportunity to slow down in a world saturated with images and constant stimulation, taking time to look, linger and be surprised.
Pinault began his cultural project in Venice in 2006, in dialogue with Tadao Ando, creating an exchange between historic heritage and the art of the present. Palazzo Grassi was restored first; three years later, Punta della Dogana was revived through an intervention by the Japanese architect, and the project continued in Paris in 2021 with the transformation of the Bourse de Commerce, the third venue of the Pinault Collection.
The collection comprises more than 10,000 modern and contemporary artworks spanning artistic movements and different expressive languages, and regularly unfolds across its three emblematic venues. For Pinault, art is above all a window onto humanity: it reveals vulnerability and energy, doubt and strength, as well as the lightness and gravity of human existence.
It invites viewers to shift their gaze, question their certainties and look differently at what surrounds them.
The announcement is illustrated with Jeff Koons's "Hanging Heart (Red/Gold)" (1994–2006), shown at Palazzo Grassi.
